Vishesh Kumar

Welcome to Vishesh Kumar's github page.

In addition to the Resume and CV, here's a bunch of projects I've worked on, often half-baked. This page is also almost a few years since it was last updated, so your best view of my recent projects and work would be through the CV. Sorry!

Working with a team from LearnPlay[, a US-based startup aimed at making learning games,] this is my ongoing undergradute thesis project (since August 2014). It is aimed at creating an engaging game with embedded probabilistic mechanics that encourage players to strategize about the impact of their decisions, and think about probability during play. A report of the work done so far is available here. A prezi-based extensive conceptualization and ideation is here. A primitive version of the prototype is in place at the project title's link, which is currently being further improved and built.

A music programming puzzle game. One half Logo for music making, and one half Robozzle for music making puzzles. Began programming version 0.1 (<-the link includes an attempt to a background description to what, and why we were making) from 17-26 February, 2014. Version 0.2 (linked in the title) began in early March – temporarily concluded and sketchily tested by 23 May, 2014. Done in a team of 4, as our 6th semester's design project. //using paper.js for v0.1, and Processing & MaKeyMaKey for v0.2

Worked on a project aimed at designing an assessment system, to identify and gauge Iridescent's traits (Persistence, Creativity, etc.), in players of the Ethers Games. I mostly worked on understanding, extracting meaning from, and trying to make measurable sense of play data we had of the games' play – a detailed report of all the work over the summer is in the linked title. This work was done over the summer of 2014 (May-July) as a remote internship with Iridescent Learning, with a lot of active guidance from Kevin Miklasz. //using R for lots of graphs and data compilation & analyses.

Github link here. A learning science research project, of graduate student Kiera Chase, under Professor Dor Abrahamson, designed for sense-making of algebraic operations in pre-algebra students, using a metaphor of giant steps and their journeys in a desert. Done in the summer of 2013, along with fellow intern (co designer and researcher) Rishika Jain, at the Embodied Design Research Laboratory (EDRL). //Developed using JavaScript (a library called Paper.js for the most part).

In 2011, Qount It is a venture founded by my friends and me, to spread our love for math –-- a subject we all enjoyed, and wished to see greater celebration and engagement with. We organized school level math symposia – involving educational talks from professors, quizzes, problem solving events, as well as innovative kinds of puzzles to engage participants. We also ran a math blog for some time, engaging international audiences and creators as well. Our last event, Pentagram 2012, was sponsored by Intel, organized at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, and saw a participation of almost 150 students from grades 9-12 of schools all over Delhi and cities nearby.

This project was carried out as a part of the Usability Engineering project in our seventh semester. Given the target of spreading sustainability education in an interesting manner to primary/secondary school children, we chose the domain of educating players about making environmentally sound decisions, in tandem with financial decisions – conveying how being ecologically aware and planning economically in the long term, often go hand in hand, and should be prioritized over short term choices.

As a 4-6 player board game where players manage power plants in their territories, while buying resources and meeting corresponding power demands, players are exposed to a variety of ideas, and also made aware of alternate energy sources worth being aware of. //in the real physical world (how incredible)! In a team of two.

Quickly souped up (towards the end of September, 2014) as part of a class assignment in a New Media Studies course - to depict the property of a "hypernarrative" in new media, and how different consumers have a different experience in consuming new media objects - due to hyperlinks/options of new paths – as they get to craft their own experience and narrative by following links, or making different choices at every different step. Pending further refinement. //using paper.js

Intended to be an interactive simulation set for seeing projections of objects in fewer dimensions than they exist in. Currently only shows the shadow for a cube. Hopefully to be extended soon.
Made in 2-3 hours shortly preceding the dawn of 17 February, 2014. Solo project, part of a class assignment in an oblique manner. //using paper.js

A mechanical musical sequencer, also describe-able as a customizable wind chime. Built over a week (27 Jan - 2 Feb, 2014) at the MIT DI 2014 workshop, in a team of 4. Here's a video of the final prototype. //using lots of hands, and very little software

Course (September-November 2013) project on Interaction Design, designed in a team of 5. Following through with the entire design process, from user study, needfinding (further steps like personas, scenarios, empathy mapping, etc.), Information Architecture, wireframes, and low-fidelity mockups.

A tangible tool/toy, built with the aim of helping visualize the correlation between the waveform (and associated characteristics/definition) of light and the color it corresponds to. Led to a flurry of discussion, conflict, learning of my own, and a second iteration. Hopefully to go some place more interesting as well.
Two version built over two different days of involved work, September 15 and October 6, 2013.
Built solo, apart from lots of useful discussions with friends, and learning from different people about how the Fourier transform works, and what that means here. //Using Processing.

Aimed to be an initial experimental simulation to see how a toy that measures relative velocity of toy cars and objects, would help in making sense of the concept of relative velocity for the player/learner.
Simulation felt disappointing as it appeared to not help in any realization of useful knowledge, and the project was left hanging over there.
Solo project begun and abandoned around August 8, 2013. //Using paper.js.

A basic prototype of a project aimed to identify gestures (of the scratch and tap variety), made on surfaces, suing a microphone. A la Chris Harrison's Scratch Input. Built over a week - 22-26 January, 2013 - at the MIT DI 2013 workshop, in a team of 5. //Using Processing

A design research/HCI project on designing an alternate Braille keyboard mobile application. Prototyped on Android, tested, and published in IHCI 2012. With Nikhil Siva and Siddhartha Nambiar, over October-December 2012. //Made on Android

An Android (2 human player) game, made over one day (some hackathon), in October 2012, with Siddhartha Ancha, on the popular mathematical game Hex. Yet to merge with the extended version where an (almost) always winning AI has been made by Shreyas, and Siddhartha. //Made on Android - using the usual Java, Android SDK hocus.